Rainy Night.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.Footsteps spshing in puddles brought a hint of life to the rain-drenched silence.

  A small figure cloaked in bck emerged from the shadows with those soft, steady steps.

  She stopped beneath the eaves of a weathered stone-brick house.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.Her gloved hand rapped gently on the door—slow, deliberate, rhythmic.

  Creak.The old, shoddy wooden door cracked open just a sliver. A disheveled, middle-aged man peeked out warily, his eyes narrowing—until he saw it was just a child. His shoulders rexed, and he opened the door wider, though his hand stayed clenched tightly around the handle of a short-handled hatchet behind his back.

  Warm light spilled from inside, casting a soft glow on the child's soaked bck cloak.

  She lifted the edge of her hood, revealing a pair of rge, luminous gray eyes. Her lips, pale from hunger, parted weakly.“Kind sir, please… have mercy. Times are hard, and I haven’t eaten in three days.”

  The mplight illuminated her face—ashen skin framed by damp, charcoal-gray hair clinging to her cheeks. Her neck was long and slender, her gray eyes brimming with sorrow, and her small, upturned nose was smudged with grime. Her lips were nearly white from weakness.

  “Please, sir… Just a little food. Even half a piece of bread…” she pleaded again when the man didn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry,” the man said, his voice dry and hoarse, but his tone gentle. “I don’t have anything to spare. Not even a crumb. Maybe… someone else nearby can help you.”

  The "girl" nodded silently, making no compint—even though this had been the st home on this block.

  She pulled her hood back down, turned, and disappeared once more into the rainy night.

  If it were peacetime, the man thought, who could bear to turn away a girl like that—so pretty, so polite, so pitiful?

  …

  Her name was Hayami Reina.

  Eight years old. Female, by all appearances. And she shared a name with a certain long-dead brother of Madara Uchiha.

  But that wasn’t her real name.

  She had a secret. A huge one.

  She… was a transmigrator.

  The name “Hayami Reina” had surfaced in her mind the moment she awoke in this world. Other than that, and the nguage spoken here, she remembered nothing—neither this body’s past nor where exactly she had ended up.

  Strangely enough, back in her old world, her surname had also been Hayami. Fate, maybe.

  Reina huddled in a dry corner under a colpsed wall, arms wrapped around her knees. She needed rest—to preserve strength, and to ward off the chill gnawing at her through the rain.

  She was completely lost about what came next. Nothing in her previous life had prepared her for this.

  Before the transmigration, she had been… a "killer."Also, a "werewolf."

  Not in the usual sense, though.

  She’d worked for a pest control company. With exceptional extermination skills, her colleagues had dubbed her the “Bug-Syer”—which, shortened in Japanese, could be read as “killer.”

  And the “werewolf” part?That came from the time she squashed a fly in the middle of a meeting, then calmly wiped its remains on the back of her boss’s suit jacket while he was mid-presentation.

  The nickname stuck.

  Her journey to this world had begun with a contract: a hit job from a shady company calling itself the “Spacetime Smuggling Bureau.” The target? A mutant cockroach king known as the “Brood Monarch” that had taken up residence in one of their storage vaults.

  It sounded sketchy as hell. And dangerous. But the pay was too good to pass up.

  She’d fought tooth and nail, and eventually took the monster out. But instead of paying her, those bastards knocked her out cold.

  And that was how she became an undocumented transmigrator.

  What was that, exactly?

  Someone who gets dumped into a new world without a cheat system, no wise old mentor, and no idea where the hell they are. Someone who, after several days, is already on the verge of starving to death.

  …

  The pounding rain and the gnawing ache of hunger made it impossible to sleep. Just as Reina was about to stand and look for another shelter, a strange call drifted in from down the street.

  “Rotten meat for sale! Fresh rotten meat! Come and get it!”

  “Tasty rotten meat! Just one bite, you’ll be hooked!”

  “Big chunks of rotten meat! Guaranteed to fill you up!”

  The raspy, eerie cries and their bizarre sales pitch piqued Reina’s curiosity.

  She pushed herself up, leaning against the wall for bance, and cautiously made her way toward the sound.

  “Rotten meat for sale! Fresh rotten meat! Come and get it!”

  The voice grew louder.

  An old man in ragged, mismatched clothes was pushing a rickety cart through the rain, shouting his strange slogans as he walked.

  The reek hit her first—rotten stench seeping through the rain, clinging to the air, crawling into her nostrils.

  He was really selling rotten meat? And people bought this stuff? Wouldn’t it cause food poisoning?And why would an old man be peddling spoiled meat in the dead of night, alone, in the rain?

  Reina hesitated… then stepped forward.

  The old man gnced at her, his steps slowing just slightly. His voice came out low and hoarse:“People don’t eat people. Dogs don’t eat dogs. This meat… ain’t for humans.”

  With that cryptic remark, he kept walking, his cries echoing once more into the rainy dark.

  Not for humans? Then who the hell is it for?

  Reina felt a chill crawl up her spine. A prickling unease spread through her body.

  Before she could make sense of it, a chorus of howls rang out in the distance.

  Arf! Wooof!

  A pack of wild dogs—at least a dozen—came charging from the far end of the street, eyes glowing an eerie green as they barreled toward the old man. Some had once been household pets, hunters, loyal companions. But ever since the fmes of war had swept through this area, they had only one name now:

  Beasts.

  They were the customers.

  Reina let out a stunned ugh. “These are your… customers?”

  “Of course,” the old man rasped, stopping his cart. With one smooth motion, he upended it. Rotten meat spilled onto the wet ground in heavy chunks.

  Reina frowned. “But wild dogs don’t pay.”

  “They do,” the man whispered, voice like wet gravel. “In their own way.”

  The dogs lunged forward, tearing into the meat—and into each other. Frenzied growls filled the night as they fought, bit, and cwed. Some had eaten recently. Others hadn’t eaten in days. The starving ones went wild.

  They would kill for this.

  Rain poured down. The girl in the cloak, the twisted old man, and the snarling dogs formed a tableau of madness under the stormy sky.

  This was war. This was the war.

  The meat vanished in moments. The pack scattered.

  All except one.

  A medium-sized dog remained behind, dragging its body forward. One of its hind legs had been snapped clean off by a massive bck-furred hound in the scuffle. It filed in the mud, trying to move.

  Reina understood.

  That dog…That was the price they paid.

  People offered people meat.To dogs.To get dog meat in return.